The
University of Detroit Mercy School of Law offers a rigorous legal education with
a curriculum and programs that emphasize teaching the practical skills of
lawyering, ethics, a commitment to public service, and a distinct international
approach.

Founded
in 1912, the University of Detroit Mercy School of Law is the oldest Michigan law school
affiliated with a private university, and it shares the Jesuit and Mercy
tradition of value oriented education. Degrees offered include a three-year,
full-time program and part-time day and evening programs in which students can
complete the degree in four or five years. Also offered is a unique, three-year
joint degree (J.D./LL.B.) program with the Faculty of Law at the University of
Windsor, Canada; a J.D./M.B.A. program that requires four years to complete;
and a five-year joint degree (J.D./L.D.) program with the Instituto Tecnológico
y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey.

The
School’s innovative curriculum integrates theory, doctrine, and practice. In
the first year, students participate in the School’s nationally ranked writing
program and a newly developed course in which students study various analytical
tools and theories in a way that helps them better understand the relationships
between the core first-year courses. In the second year, the School’s Writing
Across the Curriculum program ensures that students continue to receive
designed to transition students to practice. Graduating students participate in
either a clinic or externship and take at least two courses in the School’s Law
Firm Program, which engages them in portions of a simulated transaction. The
School has created a Distinguished Visiting Professor program that brings
senior partners from major law firms into the classroom and combines the
strengths of traditional legal education with the applied knowledge and skills
of training in writing and experience in drafting many forms of legal
documents. The final year is experienced lawyers.

Both
practical skills and a commitment to public service are instilled through a
broad clinical program, which includes the Urban Law Clinic, an Immigration Law
Clinic, a Veterans Law Clinic, an Environmental Law Clinic, an Appellate
Advocacy Clinic, and a Mediation Clinic. Clinical students work in the School’s
Mobile Law Office in which students use a specially equipped RV to provide
legal services to the disadvantaged in distressed areas of the city. Due to the
generosity of General Motors, the School recently acquired a second Mobile Law
Office, which enables Veterans Law Clinic participants to travel across the United States
as part of UDM Law’s Project SALUTE educating veterans about federal veterans
benefits and training pro
bono attorneys to assist these veterans.

In
addition to these clinical opportunities, the School awards Public Interest
Fellowships to students to fund their work in unpaid legal positions with
non-profit and public-service organizations. As a result of its many public
service initiatives, the American Bar Association Student Law Division awarded
the School with the 2006 Judy M. Weightman Memorial Public Interest Award, given
annually to a law school or individual in recognition of their public interest
programming.

The
School provides a distinct international focus through its unique joint degree
programs with the University of Windsor and the Instituto Tecnológico y de
Estudios Superiores de Monterrey (ITESM). Students have the option of
participating in the Canadian/American joint degree program, the only
integrated law program of its kind that enables students to earn in three years
a Juris Doctor (J.D.) from University of Detroit Mercy School of Law and the
Bachelor of Laws (L.LB) from the University of Windsor Faculty of Law. The School of Law
also participates in an exchange program with the University
of Clermont-Ferrand in France, in
which a recent graduate of each school visits the other institution for a year
of teaching French or American law. In support of its commitment to better
prepare students to practice in a global legal community, the School provides
students summer study-abroad stipends to defray travel and accommodation
expenses. It also now requires its entering classes to complete at least one
course that studies a foreign legal system.

Students
also have the option of participating in the North American Lawyer Multiple
Degree Program, which enables students to earn in five years a Mexican Bachelor
of Arts in Law (Licenciado en Derecho or L.D.) from ITESM (which qualifies the
recipient to practice law in Mexico)
and the Juris Doctor (J.D.) from UDMLaw. Students who want to practice in all
three NAFTA
countries also will be able to earn a Canadian law degree, by virtue of UDM’s
joint American/Canadian law degree program discussed above. Students can obtain
all three degrees in six years. And regardless of which course of study these
students decide to pursue, they will have the unprecedented opportunity to take
up to fourteen Mexican Law courses that will be taught in Spanish at UDM.

The
School offers a focus on ethical issues in the law through a wide range of
programs and activities, including Ethics Across the Curriculum (by which
ethical issues are introduced in every course), Professional Responsibility
Moot Court Competition, and a Moot Management Committee Competition (in which
student teams compete in simulating meetings of law firm management committees’
addressing ethical cases.) It also offers courses in Law and Religion, Canon
Law, and Talmudic Law, in order to help students develop their own moral and
ethical frameworks.

The
School’s Law Library, a U.S.
government depository, has an extensive collection including federal, state and
British Commonwealth materials, as well as records and briefs of cases argued
before the Supreme Courts of the U.S.
and Michigan.
The array of student activities at the School of Law
includes Law Review, Moot Court, the American Inns of Court, the Justice Frank
Murphy Honor Society, the Black Law Student Association, the St. Thomas More
Society, the Student Bar Association, and many other organizations.

Graduates
of the School of Law
sit on the Michigan Supreme Court, the Michigan Court of Appeals, the U.S.
Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, and other benches throughout Michigan and beyond.
Alumni have held major elective offices, including mayor of the City of Detroit, CountyCommissioner, CountyExecutive,
and a host of other executive positions.

PAM
WILKINS, (Law Professor), born Nashville,
Tennessee, January 25, 1968; admitted to bar, 1993, North Carolina (inactive);
1995, South Carolina (inactive). Education: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (A.B., 1989); University of South CarolinaSchool of Law (J.D., 1993). COURSES:Legal
Writing, Death Penalty in America.Email:wilkinpa
@ udmercy.edu